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Condoleezza Rice's RiceHadleyGates Partners With Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures has partnered with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s consulting firm RiceHadleyGates LLC to bring strategic assistance on a variety of global issues to its portfolio companies.

Rice’s three other principals at her firm are former national security advisor Stephen Hadley, former Secretary of State Robert Gates and former special assistant to under secretary for political affairs at the U.S. Department of State Anja Manuel. The firm will help Khosla’s companies navigate international markets, regulation, policy and other issues.

Despite the firm’s government expertise, the firm prides itself on technology and Silicon Valley knowledge as well, Manuel says. Manuel and Rice, the former provost of Stanford University, are based in Silicon Valley, while Gates is in Seattle and Hadley is in Washington.

“We’re particularly excited about this relationship with Khosla and helping young entrepreneurial companies,” Manuel said. “We can give a lot of ideas on navigating emerging markets. As selling into emerging markets or who have development teams there. We can help them understand regulatory environment and governments in particular countries.”

The firms wouldn’t discus the financial arrangement of the partnership, but presumably the deal is less financial than it is for long term goals. For RiceHadleyGates, it gets access to some of the hottest technology companies.For Khosla, having Rice and her team involved provides practical assistance as many startups are moving to international markets quicker than ever.

RiceHadleyGates also adds a selling point as Khosla competes with other venture firms for top startups. Today many venture firms offer a variety of services in addition to the actual venture capital investors, such as marketing, recruiting and business development assistance. Bringing in geopolitical expertise from a former Secretary of State ups the ante. ”As a number of our companies are thinking of going international they may face delicate policy and regulatory issues,” said Samir Kaul, a venture capitalist at Khosla Ventures. “This is an important skill set for a number of our companies. It’s one that most VCs on Sand Hill don’t have. It’s a great way to continue our venture assistance model.”

One other firm that has brought in a major statesman is Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with partner Al Gore.

Rice, in addition to her international and government expertise, has specific corporate experience having been a director at Chevron, Charles Schwab and Hewlett-Packard. Rice also has been on the board of Khosla portfolio company Kior with Vinod Khosla.

As an example of the type of work RiceHadleyGates has done, Manuel said the firm worked with a company that wanted to expand to five new emerging markets. “We helped them think through the policy risks,” Manuel said. “And where they might get positive reception from governments. We helped introduce them to those countries and help them get started.”

With another company, RiceHadleyGates helped work on issues of Internet freedom in India and how to navigate and influence those issues there, Manuel said.

“All of us at RiceHadleyGates share Khosla Ventures’ vision and passion for helping the next generation of entrepreneurs change the world for the better,” Condoleezza Rice said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to putting our experience to good use by helping Khosla’s impressive portfolio companies navigate the tricky waters of political, policy, and regulatory issues around the world.”

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